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PRESIDENT WILLIAM McKINLEY 



" OUR INTEREST IS IN CONCORD, NOT CONFLICT, 
AND OUR REAL EMINENCE RESTS IN THE VICTORIES 
OF PEACE, NOT THOSE OF WAR." 

" OUR EARNEST PRAYER IS THAT GOD WILL 
GRACIOUSLY VOUCHSAFE PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS 
AND PEACE TO ALL OUR NEIGHBORS, AND LIKE BLESS- 
INGS TO ALL THE PEOPLES AND POWERS OF EARTH." 

" MY WIFE : BE CAREFUL ABOUT HER I DON'T 
LET HER KNOW." 

" LET NO ONE HURT HIM." 

" I AM SORRY TO HAVE BEEN A CAUSE OF 
TROUBLE TO THE EXPOSITION." 

" GOOD-BY, ALL, GOOD-BY. IT IS GOD's WAY. 
HIS WILL BE DONE, NOT OURS." 



UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

MEMORIAL CONVOCATION 

THE ARMORY SEPTEMBER 19 1901 

Address by PRESIDENT ANDREW S DRAPER LL D 



p. 

260 "01 



Whereas, On the 19th of September of the current year, 
at the Armory of the University of Illinois, President A. S. 
Draper, in the presence of the Trustees, Faculty and students 
of the University, delivered a very instructive and impressive 
address on the life and character of President McKinley, and 
on the lessons to be learned from the event which has called 
forth universal execration and mourning, therefore 

Resolved, That the Board of Trustees of the University of 
Illinois, desiring to voice their approval of the sentiments and 
opinions expressed by President Draper in this admirable ad- 
dress, request his consent to the publication and distribution of 
the same, and, after such consent is obtained, do hereby instruct 
the Secretary to have the same suitably published in pamphlet 
form. [Action by the Board of Trustees of the University of- Illi- 
nois September 28, 1901.] 



PRESIDENT WILLIAM McKINLEY 



" OUR INTEREST IS IN CONCORD, NOT CONFLICT, 
AND OUR REAL EMINENCE RESTS IN THE VICTORIES 
OF PEACE, NOT THOSE OF WAR." 

" OUR EARNEST PRAYER IS THAT GOD WILL 
GRACIOUSLY VOUCHSAFE PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS 
AND PEACE TO ALL OUR NEIGHBORS, AND LIKE BLESS- 
INGS TO ALL THE PEOPLES AND POWERS OF EARTH." 

" MY WIFE I BE CAREFUL ABOUT HER '. DON'T 
LET HER KNOW." 

" LET NO ONE HURT HIM." 

" I AM SORRY TO HAVE BEEN A CAUSE OF 
TROUBLE TO THE EXPOSITION." 

" GOOD-BY, ALL, GOOD-BY. IT IS god's WAY. 
HIS WILL BE DONE, NOT OURS." 



UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

MEMORIAL CONVOCATION 

THE ARMORY SEPTEMBER 19 1901 



Address by PRESIDENT ANDREW S DRAPER LL D 



it 



PROGRAM 

Andante Boos 

Military Band 

Scriptures Rev Franklin L Graff 

Prayer Rev John W Miller 

Nearer my God to Thee 

Military Band and Congregation 

Memorial Address President Draper 

America Military Band and Congregation 

Benediction Rev Franklin L Graff 

The Palms Faure 

Military Band 



tg 



PRESIDENT WILLIAM McKINLEY 

For the third time in the brief period of a generation the 
President has been wounded to the death by assassination. 
In that period no President has died in office from natural 
causes. Three of the seven men who, since 1860, have been 
carried to the head of the purest democracy in the world by 
the free voice of the people thereof, have met violent deaths 
by foul and murderous hands. And the dark deed has, in each 
case, been as unprovoked as foul, as senseless as murderous. 
Each time the blow has fallen upon a plain man, of generous 
impulses and gentle ways, who had given no personal offense 
or provocation. Each blow has caused the deepest sorrow and 
stirred the noblest emotions in every part of the land. In 
each case the stupid and brutal hand which moved to destroy 
has served to build up, for as the millions have gathered once 
and again, and yet again, at the bier of their Chief Magistrate 
to tell the story of their common grief, they have looked upon 
the flag and recalled what it has cost and what it signifies ; 
they have again, and yet again, invoked the help of the Father 
of All and dedicated themselves anew to the task of making the 
Government of the people yet more secure. 

Once again the Nation stands in sorrow and humiliation at 
the portals of the grave of a President struck down with 
savage cunning and deliberate plan at the very center of the 
world's highest civilization. It is not strange that the shock, 
for the moment, stunned the sensibilities of eighty millions of 
freemen. It is not unnatural that the immediate impulse was 
for vengeance upon the monster who had shot the President 
the people loved. It is a signal encouragement that, in these 
four or live funeral days, reason has strongly asserted her sway 
and the popular thought has clearly seen that vengeance is but 
a savage and not an effective remedy for a brutal and an un- 
natural crime. 

Each of the funeral services over the remains of President 
McKinley has been attended with added solemnity and sug- 



gestiveness. On Sunday the private or family service was 
held at the home where he died. With the usual Christian 
service the family and personal friends gave the form of their 
dear one over to the people who claimed him and to the public 
ceremonial which the position he had attained made impera- 
tive. On Tuesday, at the official funeral, the officers of Govern- 
ment, the Congress, the Courts, the Army and the Navy, and 
the representatives of all the other nations inarched down 
"The Avenue" with heavy and measured step, and held their 
imposing service under the great dome of the Capitol. But to- 
day the people's funeral is more impressive and has a deeper 
meaning than any which has gone before. At this hour all the 
labors of eighty millions of people are halted, their stores and 
offices and factories are closed, even their never-resting lines 
of communication and transportation are stilled, as in spirit 
they gather around the grave at Canton to give the dust of 
the President back to our common mother earth, while they 
lift their grief by mingling it, and think upon what shall be 
hereafter. 

The ponderous wheels of Government move on without 
interruption for the new President is invested with all the 
functions of the Office, by the simple ceremonial of taking the 
oath and kissing the Bible. Responding to his proclamation, 
as well as to our own impulses, we have stopped all work for 
the day, in this opening and organizing week of the University 
year, that we may gather in formal convocation and give ex- 
pression to the bitter, unreconciled and indignant grief which 
we share with that overwhelming body of our countrymen who 
know the worth of free institutions and who stand for the 
progress of righteousness and the reign of law. 

SALIENT FACTS IN THE PRESIDENT'S LIFE 

To attempt any very close examination of the history or 
any very exact analysis of the qualities of President McKinley 
is beyond the possibilities of this brief hour. 

He came from a great stock which has done much for the 
settlement and stability of America. The blood of the Cove- 



nanters did much for him. The moral and physical sinews of 
the McKinleys were seasoned and hardened by the stalwart 
preaching of John Knox and the strenuous battles against the 
Stewart kings for religious and political liberty in Scotland. 
Coming to the New World at the middle of the Eighteenth 
Century the McKinleys became farmers in Pennsylvania where 
so many of the Scotch-Irish, a rugged people upon a rugged 
soil, have settled. Of this family young David McKinley shared 
the hardships and the glories of Washington's Army and then 
settled down to the severe but men-producing life of the pio- 
neer farmer. 

While the McKinleys were coining from Scotland and 
breaking the hard soil of Pennsylvania, an English family by 
the name of Rose, persecuted for conscience sake and impelled 
by the imperious and unyielding spirit of English Puritanism, 
was moving by the way of free Holland to the same State to 
open the mountains and take out the coal and iron from which 
have been developed the foremost of American manufacturing 
industries. While David McKinley was fighting the first bat- 
tles of the Republic, Andrew Rose was supplying iron for patriot 
cannon, and in time he became, himself, a gallant soldier in 
the patriot army. 

And when the battles were over David McKinley and Mary, 
daughter of Andrew Rose, became friends, and lovers, and hus- 
band and wife. The first issue of this union was a son, given 
the name of William, who became a pioneer in the iron busi- 
ness in eastern Ohio. He married Nancy Allison a descendant, 
like himself, of Covenanter stock. To them were given eight 
children, one of whom, born in 1843, inherited his father's 
name of William, and inscribed that name upon the scroll of 
the immortals. 

Who shall wonder, when these brief facts are noted, at the 
substantial character, the intrepid blood, the love of work, and 
the inherent aptitude for industrial investigations which made 
William McKinley a great leader of men and the twenty-fourth 
President of the United States ? 

He grew up like many an ordinary American boy. He at- 



tended the village school. At a very early age he showed a 
tendency towards argument and oratory. He prepared for col- 
lege and entered Allegheny at sixteen, but sickness soon com- 
pelled him to suspend his college course. Then the father be- 
came embarrassed in business and the son felt obliged to share 
the family support. He taught school, and in the teaching of 
others did the most to teach himself. At eighteen, when he was 
yet teaching, came the war between the states. Without a mo- 
ment's waiting he entered as a private soldier the 23d Ohio 
Regiment, of which William S. Rosecrans was colonel, Stanley 
Matthews lieutenant colonel, and Rutherford B. Hayes major. 
For fourteen months he carried a musket. There was no harder 
fighter and none with more fighting to do. He shared in all 
the sickening, shuddering experiences of the Army of the Po- 
tomac. Referring to this period he recently said: "I always 
look back with pleasure to those fourteen months I served in 
the ranks. They taught me a great deal. The year was a 
formative period in my life. I have always been glad I en- 
tered the service as a private." His veteran carriage at Antie- 
tum gained him a lieutenancy. There is much of interesting 
and glorious detail in his soldier life, but we must pass it by. 
Gallant and meritorious service in time won a major's com- 
mission over the signature of Lincoln. When the war was fully 
over, in July, 1865, he was mustered out. 

Now he must face life. Should he go back to college or 
forthwith into the struggle of life ? He took a middle course. 
He went to the old Albany Law School, the department of law 
of Union University, and, in 1867, graduated. In the next nine 
years he displayed no little aptitude for the bar. He became 
the efficient public prosecutor of the county in which he lived. 
But his interest grew in public afiairs rather than in the drudg- 
ery of the office or the trial at bar. His power as a public 
speaker enlarged and he drifted inevitably towards public life. 
In 1870 he sought the nomination and was elected to Congress. 
In 1878 his district had been gerrymandered against him, but 
he overcame an adverse majority of 2,500 and was elected by 
more than 1,200. Seven times he was elected. In Congress he 



became so hard a student of American industrial problems, and 
so much of a specialist upon revenue and protective tariffs, and 
withal so ready and accomplished in debate, as to make a very 
considerable impression upon the Country. 

It must not be imagined that his bark glided smoothly and 
easily along the stream. It had to be propelled against adverse 
winds by physical and intellectual forces. His forcefulness and 
in time his very prominence in the House of Representatives 
arrayed against him the sharpest political opposition. Ohio 
has long been the tramping ground of very hostile political 
parties, and frequently they have been so evenly divided as to 
cause the control of the legislature to rest first with one and 
then with the other. Neither has hesitated to use its legislative 
power to redistrict the State so as to make it more difficult for 
the opposition to again get control, and in this process it has 
always been considered legitimate political warfare to outline 
districts which would make it difficult or impossible for leaders 
of the opposition to gain re-election. This was done so effectu- 
ally by the democrats against Mr. McKinley that when, in 
1889, he was a candidate for re-election, he was defeated. But, 
as very often happens in such matters, the vigor of his canvass 
in a hopeless contest, and the widespread regret at his defeat, 
made him, in the ensuing campaign, the logical candidate of 
his party for Governor of the State. That campaign was one 
of the most memorable in the long list of memorable cam- 
paigns in Ohio. It was the first general canvass the candidate 
had ever made, but it proved him, as a strategist and upon the 
hustings, one of the strongest men who had ever participated 
in an Ohio State campaign. His personal character stood the 
search light of vigorous opposition and appealed to the better 
nature and the sounder thinking of the people, while his spirit 
stirred and quickened the activities of his political associates ; 
and his words, even among his opponents, left no bitterness 
behind him. He was elected and then re-elected by one of the 
largest majorities ever thrown in the State. 

His administration as Governor of Ohio was not marked by 
hazardous or brilliant exploits, but by such unvarying kindli- 



6 

ness, such steadiness and such uniformly patriotic sense, as to 
command the confidence of the State and of the Country. As 
early as 1880 he had been talked about for the Presidency. In 
1884 he was something of a factor in the National Convention. 
In 1888 the nomination was within his grasp, but he declined 
it upon a point of honor. He was a delegate in the National 
Convention under the instructions of his State to support 
Senator Sherman. The delegation did it loyally, but the event 
proved that the nomination of Sherman was impossible. A 
stampede was imminent. The air of the convention was 
charged with feverish expectancy. All the republican con- 
gressmen in Washington, seeing his availability, joined in a 
telegram to the convention urging his nomination. Two dele- 
gates had been voting for him through several ballots, but the 
number was so small that, although it had both annoyed and 
amused him, he could not protest against it without seeming 
to desire to attract attention to himself. On the next ballot 
his vote rose to fourteen, and the movement towards him was 
decisive and unmistakable. He was recognized at once as the 
available man in a trying situation, and all believed that he had 
but to sit still and the nomination would come to him at once. 
But he would not sit still. He sprang to his feet and electri- 
fied the convention and perhaps assured his great future by 
the unthinking revelation of his great soul. Let us hear his 
very words : 

"I am here as one of the chosen representatives of my 
State. I ana here by resolution of the Republican State Con- 
vention, passed without a single dissenting vote, commanding 
me to cast my vote for John Sherman for President and to use 
every worthy endeavor for his nomination. I accepted the 
trust because my heart and my judgment were in accord with 
the letter and spirit and purpose of that resolution. It has 
pleased certain delegates to cast their vote for me for Presi- 
dent. I am not insensible to the honor they would do me, but 
in the presence of the duty resting upon me, I cannot remain 
silent with honor. 

" I cannot consistently with the wish of the State whose 



credentials I bear and which has trusted me ; I cannot with 
honorable fidelity to John Sherman ; I cannot consistently 
with my own views of personal integrity, consent, or seem to 
consent, to permit my name to be used as a candidate before 
this convention. I would not respect myself if I should find it 
in my heart to do so, or permit to be done that which would 
ever be ground for anyone to suspect that I wavered in my 
loyalty to Ohio or my devotion to the chief of her choice and 
the chief of mine. I do not request, I demand that no delegate 
who would not cast reflection upon me shall cast a ballot for 
me." 

Another was nominated and elected. Four years later Mr. 
McKinley was himself chairman of the nominating convention 
and held unsurpassed popularity in that vast assemblage. The 
re-nomination of President Harrison was widely believed to be 
of doubtful expediency and the tendency of the convention 
was again overwhelmingly towards McKinley. Against his 
repeated and forceful protests the vote for him had reached 
182. But he had given his word and did not falter. Leaving 
the chair he moved that the nomination of Harrison be made 
unanimous, and carried a doubting convention to that con- 
summation. In the campaign which followed, as we all know, 
the candidate was defeated. 

By the middle of the ensuing administration it had become 
quite manifest to experienced observers of political occurences 
that the popular feeling would produce the nomination of 
McKinley for President in the next National Convention of his 
party. There were some decided efforts to stem the tide in the 
great states of Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York, but they 
were unavailing, and upon the first ballot he had a clear ma- 
jority of all the votes, was named by acclamation, then elected, 
and, four years later, renominated without question, and re- 
elected with decisiveness. 

ADMINISTRATION AS PRESIDENT 

It is difficult, under the spell upon us today, to declare 
with any confidence the exact place which will be accorded to 



8 

Mr. McKinley by the sober judgment of history; but it is safe 
enough to say that each month of his highest public service 
has gained for him a yet larger share in the esteem of his 
countrymen, and that the great things accomplished in his ad- 
ministration have ensured for him an exalted place among 
the very great names upon the roll of the makers of our 
Country. 

Few men have understood, have been filled with, have ex- 
pressed the spirit and purposes of our national life so com- 
pletely as he. Few have appreciated the proprieties or met the 
responsibilities of the great station to which he rose so fully as 
he. Few of the Presidents have had so inspiring an outlook, 
have held their own lives so open to the better impulses and 
the higher leadings of the Nation, and have been so able to ex- 
ercise the functions of their great office for such a large meas- 
ure of national upbuilding and advancement as he. 

In all his public life Mr. McKinley has been a hard student, 
a tenacious advocate and a conspicuous representative of the 
policy of imposing protective duties for the promotion of 
American industries. There is no temptation to enter upon 
the discussion of the merits of that policy now, nor to forget 
that there are many who do not accept it. But no one, ad- 
herent or opponent, will deny that his purposes were patriotic. 
As Fisher Ames said of Alexander Hamilton, in none of the 
revenue bills which he framed is there to be found a clause 
which savors of despotic power. To this very important subject 
he devoted the studiousness and the aggressiveness of his life. 
He left no loop-holes of escape, no avenues of retreat. He had 
ready command of the facts and his logic never failed. He 
risked his public life upon his economic and industrial theories, 
and the event proved that he did it wisely and well. His con- 
fident outlook and his convincing advocacy combined with his 
personal qualities to carry him to the Presidency. 

And the new energy which was given to American industries 
by his election, seemed to vindicate his philosophy and cer- 
tainly gained for him a yet larger measure of personal 
and public regard. His administration found our industries 



9 

depressed and discouraged, and speedily saw them teem with 
unprecedented vigor and life. It is not said that his admini- 
stration did it, but one can hardly deny that the confidence 
with which capital and labor both regarded him had very 
much to do with it. Nor will any one doubt that the iu- 
dustrial activity which has everywhere taken possession of the 
land during his Presidency has of itself given a warmer glow 
to the feelings of the people towards the President who had al- 
ways and everywhere foretold it. 

For the first time in his life this unwavering disciple of 
the extreme policy of protection revealed the influence of new 
conditions upon his opinions touching the relations of national 
tariff policies and national industries in his address at Buffalo 
on the day before his assassination. That address taken in 
connection with what had gone before exemplifies the 
patriotism and the sagacity of the man. He had discerned, 
and that shows that he was willing to see, that new conditions 
in the world were forcing a revision of political creeds and a 
modification of governmental policies. His last public utter- 
ance promises to become a precious political legacy to his 
Country. Let us hear a sentence or two from that memorable 
public expression : 

"A system which provides a mutual exchange of com- 
modities is manifestly essential to the continued and healthful 
growth of our export trade. We must not repose in fancied 
security that we can forever sell everything and buy little or 
nothing. If such a thing were possible, it would not be best 
for us or those with whom we deal. We should take from our 
customers such of their products as we can use without harm 
to our industries and labor." 

" The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our 
trade and commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars 
are unprofitable. A policy of good will and friendly trade rela- 
tions will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are in harmony 
with the spirit of the times ; measures of retaliation are not." 

" Our interest is in concord, not conflict, and our real emi- 
nence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war." 



10 

" Our earnest prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe 
prosperity, happiness, and peace to all our neighbors, and like 
blessings to the peoples and powers of earth," 

If Mr. McKinley was a tenacious and aggressive partisan 
upon protective tariffs he was not commonly so upon other 
subjects. Ordinarily he was mild in his expressions and 
judicial in his temperament to a degree which led to the quite 
common belief that he was vacillating and weak. In the Presi- 
dential Office he kept closely in sympathy with the over- 
whelming sentiment of the Country, and so made himself the 
exponent of very great undertakings, and his office the instru- 
ment of very great deeds. 

His first election turned very largely upon the matter of the 
standards of national and international finance. He was by no 
means an original gold monometalist. He became such because 
forced by the extreme attitude of his opponent, because led by 
the teachings of students of the subject, because carried along by 
the drift of the sentiment of his country, because sustained by 
the growing courage of his party. In this as in many other mat- 
ters he followed or he fell in with sentiment, quite as much as 
he led it. 

Touching the most stirring events of his administration, 
—the war with Spain for the rescue of Cuba and the acquisi 
tion and pacification, in sequence, of great island empires in 
both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, he did not have the 
initiative. The abuse heaped upon him by the opponents of 
these undertakings, assuming as we do the right of opposition, 
was wholly misplaced and unwarranted. All that he did in 
connection with these very trying events he did as the conser- 
vative, cautious, responsible, and reliable agent and instru- 
ment of his country. If he had done less he would have been 
centured more. The affection and admiration of his people 
grew because with some apparent and natural reluctance he 
made himself the instrument of the people and did the great work 
of the nation and the age with such a steady and patriotic hand. 

If his agressive leadership touching industrial questions and 
tariff legislation, upon which he felt that he was, and upon which 



11 

he unquestionably was, an expert, opened the way for his upright 
character and attractive personality to reach the Presidency, 
his sympathy with all mankind, his readiness to listen to 
others upon matters concerning which he laid no claim to 
special proficiency, and his unexpected firmness under pressure, 
went quite as far to prove his greatness, to make him a world 
leader of men, and to fix his place in history. 

It may well be frankly said, and it may well be grateful to 
those who admired and loved him most, that Mr. McKinley's 
public character grew to new and unexpected proportions dur- 
ing his term in the Presidency. It is not always so ; that it 
was so with him is distinctly gratifying to all his countrymen 
in this trying hour. When chosen, the very common estimate 
of the best thinkers of the Nation was that he was clean and 
affable, but vacillating; clever and attractive, but not stern or 
resistive. It used to be said that stronger men and great com- 
mercial interests used him. His political opponents first at- 
tributed stronger qualities to him than his political associates 
recognized in him. It is doubtless true that the statesmen of 
Europe have rated his political sagacity and power higher than 
has commonly been done by the statesmen of America. But 
the highest responsibility and the severest trial proved the 
metal of which the man was made, and developed to the ut- 
most the great qualities that were in him. 

There was no taint of uncleanliness about his administra- 
tion. If wrong was done the wrong-doer was efficiently prose- 
cuted. Men of the first ability and of the largest experience 
were called to his Cabinet, and the public business was trans- 
acted safely and well. He mingled with the crowd frequently. 
He spoke and wrote freely. He came to represent and express 
national sentiment splendidly. All he said gave higher tone 
and truer ring to the best there is in our citizenship. He re- 
vealed wide and well-grounded information and, in an unex- 
pected measure, developed the power of imagination and of 
construction. Things went his way. His administration 
found his party torn and dissevered into fragments and left it 
a consolidated and energized force. He drew other parties to,. 



12 

him. He became the leader of a people as well as of a party. 
When war with Spain was imminent, Congress, without any 
dissent, placed fifty millions of dollars in his hands for its prose- 
cution. Policies which he espoused were carried out. Before 
his term was half over discerning men began to say that he 
was putting other men to his purposes rather than that self- 
seekers were using him. Other peoples recognized his quali- 
ties. Under his leadership his people had attained a new 
place in the esteem of other nations. It was no mere coinci- 
dence, it was no empty form, when the great exchanges of 
London and Liverpool, of Paris and Berlin, shut down upon the 
instant of his death. It was the natural but impressive recog- 
nition of his leadership in the wide field of national politics, 
of the eminence which he and his people had gained in the yet 
wider field of international comity and commerce. Before the 
sad end came, the facts accomplished under his admistration, 
in recovering the public confidence, in regaining the common 
industries, in enlarging our trade to a point which stirs the ap- 
prehension of all the nations, in the hard and successful blow 
for the oppressed at our door, in extending free government 
and opening the way for the working of God's righteousness in 
the hearts of other millions of the earth, lifted him to the very 
pinnacle of fame here and throughout the world. 

PURE LIFE AND HEROIC DEATH 

As admiration for him grew, and as the fame of his public life 
extended, his personal qualities became better known and the 
knowledge endeared him to all who regard cleanliness and 
courage, simplicity and virtue. In tastes he was frugal. In 
estate he was not rich, and, although the opportunities were 
great, he was not grasping. When misplaced confidence in 
another brought upon him a loss of more than he possessed, he 
gave up all he had that he might save others so far as he 
could. That he loved public life none will doubt, but the 
little frame cottage at Canton, from which he is carried this 
afternoon, was infinitely more grateful to him than the Execu- 
tive Mansion in the "shining city." At seventeen he united with 



13 

the Methodist Episcopal Church, and his eminence never led him 
to discredit the profession he then made. His presidential train 
was ordered to a side-track upon Sundays; and if opportunity 
offered, whether at home or abroad, he uniformly went out of 
the glare of his great office on the morning of the sacred day 
to mingle with his democratic denomination and worship God 
according to the simple usages of his church. His home life 
was an ideal for all the world. His marriage was happy. Two 
little girls came into his life, but they were not to remain and, 
in infancy, passed on to the beyond. His wife, always frail, has 
long been an invalid, but his care for her, tender, unbroken 
and self-sacrificing, exceeding by far the mere devotion of a 
lover, now becomes one of the most pathetic as well as one of 
the most delightful themes in history. In temperament he 
was full of sunshine. A perfect picture of good manliness he 
would greet a visitor to the White House with a heartiness 
which was both genuine and irresistible. 

There are in his career no great peaks or promontories which 
rear their heads above the road upon which he steadily ad- 
vanced heavenward. His fame will rest upon no single occa- 
sion, upon no mere opportunity or chance. He was both a 
usual and an unusual man. In all our history there is no bet- 
ter illustration of the conquering power of the homely virtues. 
By physical and intellectual cleanliness, by devotion to wife 
and home and church, by native gentleness and generosity, by 
freedom from all bitterness and guile, by habits of study and 
the acquired power of logical thinking and of forcible expres- 
sion, by the purity of his patriotism, by the exalted plane and 
the timeliness of his public utterances, by his readiness to learn 
and to accept as well as to lead, by his unexpected firmness in 
executive action, and by steadiness and patience from first to 
last, he pursued a rugged road to an emminence which com- 
manded the respect of all the world. 

When he went with native but misplaced generosity to be- 
come a familiar figure in the Exposition, which he believed was 
to help on the more complete realization of his national ideals, 
there was but little more which could gain for him a yet 



14 

higher place in the esteem of his countrymen, and that was 
supplied in the cause and the heroism of his death. 

He had ridden along the roadways, through long lines of 
people who had come in great numbers to see him; he had 
passed through the buildings that his word and his smile might 
reward the labor of the exhibitors; he had made his great ad- 
dress; he had surrendered himself to the hand-shaking of the 
multitude ; he had warmly greeted a little girl in the intermin- 
able line and looked after her as she passed, perhaps thinking 
of the two little girls who had come into and quickly gone out 
of his own life; he had moved to grasp the hand of a fiend 
in the garb of honest toil, when the red right-hand of anarchism 
fired the bullet which tore through his body and appalled man- 
kind. With his unceasing care for others, with sublime forti- 
tude and patriotic impulse which the very presence of immedi- 
ate death could not overthrow, he talked of his wife and of the 
trouble he might be to the Exposition, and enjoined the crowd 
to let no one hurt his murderer. For days the thanksgiving 
of the Nation arose upon the reports of the experts that he 
would survive. But it was not to be. With a nobility not sur- 
passed by that of any of the great in human history, not 
by that of Hampden praying for the king who was over- 
throwing the liberties of his country, not by that of Sidney 
upon the field of Zutphen refusing the cup which could help 
another, not by that of Strafford on Tower Hill sustaining the 
court which had wrongfully condemned him, nor yet by that 
of Christ on Calvary petitioning the Father to forgive his 
enemies who knew not what they did, he said: "Good-by, all, 
good-by. It is God's way. His will be done, not ours" and 
passed into eternal peace. 

ANARCHISM IN AMERICA 

There is but one sentiment. Criminals and degenerates 
do not count. The grief is universal. Some of us reasoned as 
he did and voted for him ; some of us reasoned otherwise and 
voted against him. There is no regret at this on either side ; 
and so there is no going before and there is no lagging behind 
in the expression of bitter sorrow today. 



15 

But there is humilation and indignation and determina- 
tion in the soul of this people now ; and these will endure even 
beyond the bitter grief. The bullet which tore through the 
person of the President tore through the soul of every man and 
woman of sensibility and honor in the land. Every citizen of 
rectitude, every lover of his Country, feels the iron in his own life. 

Three times in forty years the head of the American Re- 
public has been shot to death. There is a factor in the pres- 
ent case which was absent from the ones which preceded it, 
and there is an element in popular feeling now which was not 
present on former occasions. The great Lincoln was murdered 
by a madman when the land was drenched in blood and ac- 
customed to tradgedy. War was yet rife ; and while the 
dreadful act was not warfare, but murder, it may have been 
thought to be the rough work of war by the infuriated leadei 
and the little band of shallow conspirators who took up the 
direful task. There was terror, widespread and justified, be- 
cause of the apprehension that, weakened by war, the Nation 
might not survive. With one impulse the people arose 
splendidly to the occasion, hunted and hanged the conspirators, 
and confidence asserted itself superbly. Garfield was murdered 
by a worthless tramp, who had nothing to live for, who was 
maddened at being turned back when hunting a place, and 
who had become unbalanced through unseemly and distracting 
political feuds. If there was apprehension of more serious re- 
sults it was without occasion, and but local and momentary. 
If there was indignation it was soon satisfied by the adequate 
punishment of the crime and the ready belief that none but the 
criminal were involved. In each case the criminal stood alone, 
and in each he had a fancied personal grievance against the vic- 
tim of his dreadful deed. In the present case the criminal does 
not stand alone, and he claims no personal grievance. 

And in the present case there is no public apprehension. 
We not only know that assassination has never changed the 
course of a nation, but we know the antecedents, the feelings 
and the power of this people. Happily there is confidence, en- 
tire and universal, in the learning and patriotism, in the 



16 

rugged aggressiveness and the proved fitness for high admini- 
strative trust, of that distinguished offspring of a distinguished 
lineage, that eminent son of Harvard University, who, under 
the Constitution, comes to the succession at this trying hour. 
With the self-poise and the reserve power which inhere in 
English speaking peoples, with such a man in the supreme 
place, and with the calm words which he gave us at the 
crucial hour, the foundations of Government do not feel the 
slightest shock. 

But there is shame that such a foul act can find a resting 
place in this fair land, and there is the universal resentment 
which a virile people ought to feel against those enemies of 
human society who have been organizing secret alliances 
throughout the world, preaching irrational doctrines and 
inciting if not executing fiendish deeds which defeat rather 
than aid the detestable end they have in view, while they 
stir the horror of all mankind. 

The last century has been stained deeply with the blood of 
rulers, beginning with the Russian Czar in 1801 and ending 
with President McKinley. But the assassination of the Presi- 
dent of the French Republic in 1894 doubtless marked the be- 
ginning of the work of the modern revolutionary anarchists, 
and all such deeds since then have apparantly proceeded from 
them. In seven years they have killed the heads of the two 
great republics of the world, the king of a third great power, 
the empress of a fourth, the prime minister of another 
European kingdom, and only failed in the attempt upon the 
heir to Britain's throne. 

They make no distinction in rulers. It makes no difference 
to them whether one is an hereditary monarch or freely 
chosen by a people to represent and express the common will; 
whether he be a Christian philanthropist or a brutal tyrant. 
They would kill all rulers and representatives. They make no 
discrimination in kinds of government ; they would overthrow 
all government. They are against headship in the family and 
so they would overthrow the family. They rebel against the 
power of God in the human soul and so they say there is no God. 



17 

In the manifesto of the Geneva Conference of 1882 they 
say : "We anarchists are men without any rulers. Our ruler 
is our enemy. Our enemy is the owner of the land. Our 
enemy is the manufacturer. Our enemy is the priest, the 
minister of God. Our enemy is the state whether monarchical, 
oligarchical, or democratic. Our enemy is the law. If these 
are our enemies, we are theirs. We are in accord with every 
one who defies the law by a revolutionary act. We intend to 
re-conquer the land and the factory from the land owner and 
the manufacturer; we intend to annihilate the state under 
whatever name it may be concealed. We mean to get our 
freedom back in spite of priest or law. Between us and all 
political parties, whether conservatives or moderates, whether 
they fight for freedom or not, a deep gulf is fixed. According 
to our strength we will work for the humilation of all legal 
institutions." 

Where liberty has most abided, there, for obvious reasons, 
have the sophistries of anarchism stalked most boldly. 
Switzerland, early and long the home of freedom, with her im- 
pressive mountains and her beautiful lakes and her cleanly 
people, has been a propagating ground. British law and 
liberty has afforded them undeserved protection. Under the 
security of the free institutions of the United States the anni- 
versary of the assassination of King Humbert was the other 
day publicly celebrated in the American city from which the 
assassin went to commit the horrid deed. In nearly all of the 
continental nations of Europe to be even suspected of anar- 
chism, that is not only of intending or inciting murder but of 
advocating the overthrow of the law, is to be a criminal, punish- 
able with imprisonment, and with but two havens of escape, free 
England, and America with yet larger freedom and less of the 
justice which makes freedom secure. That the liberalization of 
the New World has recently been drawing large numbers of the 
members of the "propaganda of force" from the slums and the 
saloons of the Old World out of which they have often been 
driven is asserted by the authorities of Scotland Yard, and cor- 
roborated by evidences only too manifest among us. 



18 

Is the Common Law, are the Great Charters, are our Fed- 
eral Constitution and the constitutions of all our states to be in- 
voked and relied upon to protect the enemies of all order ? 
The blood which won these muniments did not so intend it. 
Shall the temple of our covenant harbor the hostiles of all 
covenants, no matter how sacred and how imperative these 
covenants may be ? The common impulse of our citizenship 
revolts against it. 

I know that it is said there are differing theories and differ- 
ing classes in anarchism; that there are those who oppose 
force and those who invoke, sustain or exercise it. I do not 
know, the world probably will never know, how closely the 
wretched man in the Buffalo jail is associated with the 
"propaganda of force" or the measure of direct responsibility 
which anarchistic theorists may have in the murder of the la- 
mented President whose body we today commit in tears to the 
bosom of our common mother earth. Leave all that to the 
law, the court and the officers. But is one not to be held 
punishable for his spoken or written sophistries when he goes 
as far as he dares and as far as he can to overthrow all the 
sacred things for which armies have fought and martyrs have 
died, in all the years since human society began to get upon 
its feet, in all the ages since God began to act through the 
souls of men ? Must we hang the simple minded boy, as I am 
inclined to think he is, and then throw the technicalities of 
our law about the agitator whose irrational vaporings over- 
turned his mind and led straight on to the consummation of 
the dreadful act ? We will not support this suggestion either 
in itself or in its logic. The spirit of our system does not in- 
tend it. If laws have not been enacted to make crimes of the 
spoken or written word which would level our institutions and 
which leads right on to the murder of the President, it is be- 
cause the need has not been anticipated and not because the 
free-speech and free-press clause in the first amendment to the 
Federal Constitution, since copied in all the constitutions, was 
ever intended to forbid it. 

The liberty of the press and of the platform, the privacy of 



19 

association and communication, are sacred things. They were 
wrested from the kings, handed down in the Great Charters 
and specifically asserted in our constitutions because they were 
natural rights so much and so wrongfully invaded by monarch- 
ical power before the development of democracy in the world. 
These sacred guarantees of sacred things were never intended 
to protect license and defeat the very ends for which all 
government exists. 

The Constitution of Illinois expresses the intent and pur- 
pose of all of our constitutions better than the others com- 
monly do when in Article 2, Section 3, it declares that "the 
liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be construed to 
* * * excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify acts in- 
consistent with the peace or safety of the State." And again 
when in the next section it declares that " Every person may 
freely speak, write and publish on all subjects, being responsible 
for the abuse of that liberty." 

The legal writers, and the courts so far as they have gone, 
are well agreed that these guarantees are to be construed in 
the light of the conditions which existed at the time they were 
enacted ; that a moral wrong is not to be justified by a naked 
legal phrase ; that the history and tradidions of government 
are not to be overthrown ; that the ends of government are not 
to be thwarted by mere words in a government constitution ; 
that well defined purposes and manifest intent are to control. 

It has been said, it was said only the other day by an ad- 
mirable writer in the foremost of our weekly periodicals, that 
the head of our State was safe because the disciples of the 
"propaganda of action" were unmolested under our flag. 
What an instant and terrible refutation ! But no matter. We 
do not know whether the execrable act which has plunged 
this whole Nation into bitter sorrow was their work or not. 
We do know that if it had been it would have been performed 
in such a way and disowned and disguised just as it has been, for 
the organ of the sect, published in our midst, has enjoined that 
"never more than one anarchist should take charge of an attempt 
so that in case of discovery the anarchist party may suffer as 



20 

little as possible." But let that all go. Are we to warm the 
self-declared and deadly enemies of all government and en- 
courage them to multiply and prey upon others on the mere 
tacit understanding that they shall not destroy us ? If we do, 
the harvest will be as dreadful as it ought to be. Neither men 
nor society will ever save themselves, or grow in stature or in 
security, through express compromises or implied understand- 
ings with evil. 

Away with any such meaning to the most sacred things in 
our written and fundamental law! and down with any tacit un- 
derstandings which are opposed to the universal good! Society 
is to outlaw and put its heel upon all persons and publications 
whose utterances are held by all civilization to be irra- 
tional, morally illicit, opposed to all the sacred things which 
society has been lighting for these hundreds of years, and in- 
evitably and necessarily dangerous. 

A LESSON TO LEARN 

It seems to me that there is a great lesson for this splendid 
Nation yet to learn, and the sacred soil about President Mc- 
Kinley's grave, hallowed as it is, is not profaned if we stand 
upon it as we determine that we will learn that lesson. 
License, defiance to all that protects and all that secures us, is 
being indulged and allowed, falsely and profanely, in the name 
of liberty. It is something new in this Country that 
scandulous journals profit most through inciting and nourish- 
ing the basest tastes. A coarse and vicious stage flaunts its 
offensive advertisements in our faces and sends forth appeals 
for patronage which our fathers would not only have resented, 
but which they would have punished as well. The saloons 
multiply in number only to enlarge the armies of the vicious 
and unemployed. We have been accustomed to look with ap- 
prehension upon the coming of the European Sabbath, for the 
floodgates of revelry and dissipation are let loose and no 
municipal authority limits and regulates and controls as the 
authorities of Europe do. Labor unions, — altogether proper 
for legitimate ends, have undertaken to say who may work and 



21 

upon what conditions. Men have been beaten and killed be- 
cause they believed in the gospel of work in a free land. Pas- 
sengers on trolley cars have been killed because a "union," un- 
authorized by law, has decreed that one who has not complied 
with its conditions shall not be allowed to operate the car. 
Public officers have betrayed their sacred trusts at such times 
because of the fear that efficiency might turn away vicious 
votes. Men have been hanged and burned and shot to death 
by infuriated mobs upon mere suspicion and without any form 
of authorized trial, and sometimes the people themselves have 
been indifferent or have even tacitly consented thereto. 

All this nourishes and cloaks the spirit of irresponsibility, 
of irreverence, or lawlessness, of disobedience, and of 
anarchism. If our fathers were rigid in their beliefs and severe 
in their forms, we have become lax to a degree which outrages 
the convictions of Christian people, which defies the sensibili- 
ties of the lovers of stability and order, which produces a dis- 
agreeable harvest, and which loudly calls for the fuller exercise 
of the common powers for the protection and uplifting of the 
common life. 

Under the influence of the emotions which have coursed 
through our hearts in this fateful week, under the spell of the 
sacred place where we stand today, let us see anew the imper- 
ative conditions of moral progress and of social order ; let us 
realize that upon us these things rest ; let us give ourselves to 
the burdensome and unceasing task with a clearness of vision 
and a courage in action worthy of the greatest and the best 
who have gone before. 

The Nation will carry itself with circumspection, but it 
must not forget. It will investigate the abhorrent crime at 
Buffalo with dignity : it will prove the facts as required by our 
law : it will inflict punishment with deliberation. While this 
goes forward in an orderly way it will reckon with itself and 
with the future ; and then it will move upward on the highway 
of constitutional progress. 

The crime was not against Mr. McKinley. He was the ob- 
ject in the assassin's way ; the splendid representative of that 



22 

at which the foul blow was aimed. The crime was against our 
Government, and against all government, against our people, 
and against all people. It was against you and me, our parents 
and our children. It was against our Christian civilization, 
against all that has been won by battle and gathered by phil- 
osophy and science through the trying out of the ages. 

Perhaps in the ways of Almighty God, this deep sorrow, 
this piercing of the souls of all true Americans, was necessary 
to solemnize this Nation, to lead it to realize the perils which 
must always encompass it, to induce it to unite with all the 
forces of righteousness and of order throughout the world, not 
only in the making of laws but in the enforcement of laws ; 
not only in a discussion of theories, but in an overwhelming 
onset which will slush out the spawning places of anarchism 
and level to the ground all the fastnesses of evil. 

Whether or not it was necessary, it is certainly having 
that effect. From every part of the round world which has 
seen an intellectual and a moral advance, comes the spirit and 
the purpose to join forces about the grave of the murdered 
President at Canton today, that all may have the wisdom of 
each other's experience and the strength of each other's cour- 
age in the great onward movement toward the complete re- 
generation of the world. 



CONCLUSION. 

President McKinley: — The University of Illinois pays to 
your memory the tribute of its enduring homage and respect. 

Your life was not in vain, and your dreadful death shall not 
go without its compensations. 

Your mind was pure, your example was ennobling, your 
words were an inspiration to all earnest, liberty-loving men 
and women throughout the world. 

Your spirit brought the people of your Country more closely 
together than they had been in generations, and bound all the 



forces of order in all countries in a firmer union than had 
obtained in all history before. 

Your life went out in the midst of the universal sorrow. 
The industries of the people stand hushed and still, but the 
great throbbing heart of the Nation beats heavily at this hour 
as your mortal body is committed to the grave. 

You were brave in war: you were great in peace. The 
step of the Army is heavy with the feeling of comradeship; an 
artillery caisson might rightfully have been your funeral car; 
the insignia of the Loyal Legion becomes your breast even in 
your coffin; the bright flag of your country is the appropriate 
decoration of your bier. But the honors, like the victories, of 
peace exceed those of war. What you did to heal the wounds 
and mend the waste when wars were over starts the inarch of 
the millions to your tomb and betokens a renown which the 
army of the people can not give. 

A splendid mausoleum, graceful arches and towering col- 
umns, teeming libraries and noble churches, stately streets and 
thronging cities will bear to the future your name, and with 
it the esteem of the men and women who knew you. But even 
these will poorly express the depth of feeling which fills 
the land with grief and humiliation at your violent and 
untimely death. 

Your countrymen will care for the frail companion of your 
life until her pale cheek shall flush in the soft sunlight of the 
eternal morning to which you have gone ; and what you said, 
and what you did, and what you were, and the nobility of your 
death, will give wisdom and inspiration and courage to the 
passing generations of Americans forever and forevermore. 






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